5 Ways to Humanize Your Brand on Twitter

Injecting a real face and personality into your personal Twitter account is intrinsic, and most people don’t give it a second thought. We share what’s happening in our lives, photos from great vacations, things that annoy us, and other content that compels us.

But when it comes to imbuing corporate Twitter accounts with a similar measure of personality and humanity, we often fall down on the job. True, scrutiny is magnified when community and content managers become a voice for large brands. In some large corporations every Tweet is run by legal, which doesn’t always allow for real time posting or the ability to engage actively with followers in a human-esque way.

But playing it that safe on Twitter runs the risk of becoming devoid of personality giving followers no clue “who” they’re engaging with on the other side of the bright azure blue Twitter curtain.

This can chip away at brand trust and brand value. We want to do business with PEOPLE we know, PEOPLE we like, and PEOPLE we trust. We don’t want to snuggle up with a logo.

5 Ways to Humanize Your Brand on Twitter

1. Add your community or content manager’s Twitter handle to the bio

In this Twitter bio Amanda Maksymiw from OpenView Partners (a Convince & Convert client) links to her personal Twitter handle to add humanity and credibility.

Alternatively…Lucas Himovitz, Content Coordinator at Visit California (a Convince & Convert client) adds his name, but doesn’t link to his personal account – perhaps wanting to add a face behind the content, but keep work/private life separate. 

2. Use a company logo for your Twitter account, but humanize it with real people

If you’re a smaller company you might consider using your headshot as your avatar. In this example, Matt Martin works for Sam’s Club and has a dedicated employer account.

3. Include the community manager(s) face(s) in the Twitter background

Allstate Insurance shows photos and names of the people behind their Tweets, who sign tweets with initials to identify who among them sent each one.

4. Host Twitter chats

Lux Chat hosts a quarterly Twitter chat, but they could be increased to weekly or monthly chats based on community interest and news worthiness.

This is a great way to gather people in your industry together and allow them to get to know the human side of your brand. Here’s a list of Twitter Chats meeting regularly. If you find that your topic is already being fulfilled, jump into existing ones, you’ll realize many of the same benefits.

5. Answer the Twitter phone

Many brands still don’t understand that consumers aren’t only calling their CSRs or reviewing their web FAQs to find answers. Many want help immediately and are turning to Twitter to find it. Yet, 70% of customer complaints on Twitter go unanswered. 

Obviously it’s difficult to answer every question from a scalability point-of-view for large brands that may have millions of customers – but at least triage issues and address the most pressing customer needs, issues and complaints. The question of one could be the question of hundreds. 

How else can you humanize your brand’s Twitter account?

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About Lisa Loeffler

Lisa Loeffler is Research & Analysis Lead at Convince & Convert. She is also founder and principal of Genuine Media, a marketing agency that helps clients build their individual and brand reputation through social media.